I did no smelling tests - I don't touch the samples at all anymore - we ran a GCMS test for all the samples, which, the last time we tested for guaiacol (years ago) worked well for it, but I didn't take into account that... well, the testing system ages as well, to put it simply. My mistake.
When
@ohitsroy asked me to check out what else could have caused that smell, I ran a different test, to be able to identify various... fragrant substances and that's where the guaiacol showed up for sample 2.
The first GCMS test:
View attachment 283072
You can see the first identified peak is benzyl benzoate, the issue is that guaiacol was cut off before then.
So when the second test was ran for highly volatile compounds, it showed these up:
View attachment 283073 the first, non-identified peak is benzyl alcohol and the second is guaiacol (identified by its fancy chemical name).